Author Talk with TJ O'Connor

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Jonathan Hunter, a rogue CIA consultant AWOL from his Middle East assignment, returns home to witness his brother Kevin’s horrific murder. For fifteen years, Hunter and Kevin were silent—until Kevin uttered his final words … Khalifah … Not Them … Maya …

***** of local interest in the setting of this thriller...The northern part of the Shenandoah Valley including Winchester, Loudoun County and the Shenandoah River in Clarke County***

Launched into the hunt for Kevin’s killer, Hunter stumbles into a series of horrifying terrorist attacks—all at the hands of Middle Eastern refugees—that spark a backlash across the country and threaten another war. In the shadows, Hunter’s mentor, the omnipotent Oscar LaRue, is playing a dangerous game with Russian Intelligence. All the while, neither Hunter nor LaRue understand that a new threat—the Iranian threat—has entered the game. As stakes rise, two shadowy players are one-step ahead of Hunter—Khalifah, a dangerous and terrorist mastermind, and Caine, a nomadic assassin who only dances with the highest bidder. As the attacks escalate and the country drifts toward another Middle East war, innocent refugees become the victims between the terrorists and the terrorized. Prejudice, hate, and fear vent everywhere—is this who we’ve become? Before the country explodes, Hunter must find Khalifah, learn the target of the next terrorist attack, and pray he’s in time to stop it.

Tj began writing in grade school and continued to dabble through his career as a military federal agent with the Air Force OSI, where he was an anti-terrorism agent and investigator, and through his years as a senior executive and international security consultant. During that time, he penned nine novels but began his publishing career with Dying to Know, his first paranormal mystery, in 2014. Thereafter, he published two sequels—Dying for the Past and Dying to Tell, and a standalone paranormal mystery, New Sins for Old Scores. Dying to Know won the 2015 Gold Medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) for mysteries and it was a Finalist for both a 2015 Silver Falchion Award and the 2014 Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Mystery Book of the Year.

The Consultant is Tj’s first published thriller—his true passion. Presently, he’s finishing a sequel, Provocateur, and an unnamed Book III in his Jonathan Hunter Thriller series. Tj hopes Provocateur and Book III will see the marketplace in 2019 and 2020.

Aside from writing, Tj is an independent security consultant in Northern Virginia, specializing in anti-terrorism, investigations, and threat analysis—life experiences that drive his novels. With his former life as a government agent and years as a consultant, he has lived and worked around the world in places like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Americas—among others.

Tj was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and was raised in New York’s Hudson Valley. His loves include writing, reading, cooking, Harley Davidson motorcycles, and hanging with his lab companions, Tobias and Annie Rose—and of course, his wife! They continue to live in Virginia surrounded by their Labs, adult children, and a growing brood of grandchildren.